Chapter 1860 — The Immortal Veteran of the Battlefield

Young Master Taishang watched Shen Mu depart, then entered the forest of obelisks. There Taiyi sat withered in stillness, and behind him the dao tree and the dao fruit shone resplendent.

Taishang bowed in salute; Taiyi rose and returned the courtesy.

"Fellow Daoist, I have already discussed the matter with Seventh Young Master: you and the Heaven-Opening Host are to be sent back to the Sixteenth Epoch."

Taishang said, "If you and the Heaven-Opening Host remain here, I fear Seventh Young Master will conceive villainous designs. He will surely slaughter the Heaven-Opening Host, and he will send you to reincarnation as well. Villainous as the Heaven-Opening Host may be, they are also one possibility for saving the future. Only, the harm they can do is too great, and I fear he will not let you off."

Taiyi said, "Is the First Young Master feeling guilty over the Miluo Palace Master's slaying of the Heaven Capital in those years, and so wishing to make amends to me and the Heaven-Opening Host?"

Young Master Taishang shook his head. "Had my teacher not slain the Heaven Capital back then, the Heaven-Opening Host would still have become the Heaven-Opening Host; nothing would have changed. The Heaven-Opening Host of the Heaven Capital possessed the power to open heaven and earth, and they did not restrain it but abused it. By comparison, Miluo Palace was more orderly and did less harm."

"Bullshit!" From obelisk after obelisk the faces of the Heaven-Opening Host emerged, all of them raging that Young Master Taishang's words stank to high heaven.

Those of the Heaven-Opening Host cursed and swore, mocking Miluo Palace for bullying others on the strength of its position: had the Heaven Capital been given time to grow, ten Miluo Palace Masters would have been beaten to death by the Lord of the Heaven Capital, and ten Miluo Palaces razed to the ground.

The Miluo Palace Master had simply been jealous of their power, and so had erased the Lord of the Heaven Capital before they could grow.

The Heaven-Opening Host jeered that the Miluo Palace Master had no room in his heart for others—had it been them, they would long since have solved the destruction and creation of the universe and made a perfect world.

They mocked the Miluo Palace Master as incompetent, exhausting himself until his dao heart died, and serving him right to kick out his legs and croak.

Young Master Taishang paid it no mind.

Taiyi frowned, helpless as well before these Heaven-Opening folk, and said, "Fellow Daoist, how will you send us back to the Sixteenth Epoch?"

"I will dissolve into the Dao and return all my power to the universe."

Scarcely had Taishang said this than the Heaven-Opening Host began to jeer again, one after another: "Young Master Taishang, you wretch, you're going to die at the heart of the Dao just like that old thief the Miluo Palace Master!"

Taishang went on, "My dao tree is of no use kept as it is; therefore I intend to borrow your axe, cut down my dao tree, and build a boat from it, and set you aboard that boat to send you to the Sixteenth Epoch."

Pressed down within the stone steles, the Heaven-Opening Host roared with laughter at these words: "Old thief Taishang, doesn't your dao tree just end up profiting us? If you've got the guts, leave your dao fruit behind too, for us to gnaw on!"

"With your little ability, you think you can keep us trapped? Once we break free of your dao boat, we'll charge into the Seventeenth Epoch and cure that dead skull of yours!"

...

Taishang said, "I will build the dao boat and send you to the Sixteenth Epoch. But before that, Seventh Young Master must first return to the past and become the Seventh Young Master; otherwise I dare not send you back."

Taiyi said, "You fear he will go back on his word, and while you are in reincarnation wheel about and kill off the whole Heaven-Opening Host?"

Taishang said, "In the past sixteen cosmic epochs, Seventh Young Master has trapped and slain no small number of people. His ways make it very hard to rest easy. I must watch him return to the past before I can be at ease."

Taiyi nodded. "So must I."

The two sat down and waited quietly.

Shen Mu wandered on foot. He first went to the former site of the Ancestral Court, which had already become a battlefield of the Dao-attained. The Ancestral Court's Primordial Cauldron had been battered full of holes by the Young Masters' strange treasures; the strange treasures of several Young Masters had already been destroyed, leaving only the Heaven-Reaching Well of First Young Master Taishang.

The hall masters and the Dao-attained of Miluo Palace had turned from attack to defense, guarding the Heaven-Reaching Well, so that Lan Yutian, Xu Shenghua and the others could never break through.

Shen Mu gazed at the battlefield from afar, then drifted away. He strolled through the starry sky and went to the Four Poles Heaven. The four poles of the universe had now grown far vaster, and there the various races multiplied and dwelt; the Four Poles Heaven had long since grown strange to him.

When he came from the Southern Pole Heaven to the Southern Heaven, he saw that the heavens here were like so many little Jingpings; everything seemed in good order. The gods held power in their hands and used that power in the service of mortals; the mortals' commerce flourished and they supplied the gods with all manner of goods.

Shen Mu passed through one heaven after another; among all the heavens and myriad worlds, scarcely anyone knew him anymore.

Three and a half billion years of history had made everything utterly unfamiliar.

He walked through the ruins of former battlefields, standing amid the ruins to mourn the heroic spirits who had died in battle in ages past. He also sought the tombs of his enemies, but sadly found none.

Too much time had passed; the world had forgotten him, forgotten all those who had fought for the future.

Perhaps they did not understand why the people of the past had fought, why they had died, did not comprehend those in the Era of the Five Tribulations who had cast aside all thought of themselves, who had shed their blood and given their heads.

They were not even interested in learning the history of the Era of the Five Tribulations.

Longhan, Chiming, Shanghuang, Kaihuang, Jingping—the strivings of generation after generation had thus gathered dust, and few there were to brush the dust away and read the long-sealed pages.

Full of melancholy, Shen Mu at last came to the Origin Realm.

The Origin Realm was vaster and more solid than when he had left. The Ancestral Court no longer existed; it had become a mighty weapon. The Origin Realm had taken the Ancestral Court's place and become the center of all the heavens and myriad worlds.

The Heavenly Court of Jingping was built here, and Gongsun Yan's true body, the Primordial Wood, had grown lush and verdant. That little girl of those years, who had taken him for a tree that needed watering, had become the symbol of the Origin Realm.

Like an ordinary mortal, Shen Mu walked through the cities of the Origin Realm, observing the people's life, experiencing the people's life.

The Origin Realm had become wholly unfamiliar; the economy that ordered the realm and succored the world had changed greatly from when he left, and the culture and customs had grown so strange to him as to be jarring. The architectural styles of the divine cities, one after another, made him feel in a daze that he had come to an alien world.

People's clothing, their food, their speech, even the runes had changed from former days.

He was like an antique dug out of an ancient tomb, sharing nothing in common with this world at all.