Chapter 1539 — The Hard Clash with a Heavenly Venerable
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Shen Mu started, his gaze lingering a moment longer on the woman within the Dao Fruit; she was looking back at him, surprise and a touch of flustered alarm on her face. "Not bad," he praised silently, and let his eyes move from her bosom back to the Lady of Heaven Qiang.
"Milady.
.
.
" "Address me as Grand Imperial Majesty," said the Lady of Heaven Qiang, nettled.
Shen Mu laughed aloud. "A moment ago Your Majesty was calling herself 'this Palace. ' Why does she now demand to be addressed as 'Majesty'?
" The Lady of Heaven Qiang snorted, her gaze falling on the sword at his waist.
"Where did you get that sword? Your spiritual power is nowhere near the level of a Heavenly Venerable.
That you could wound me just now — that must be the doing of this sword, must it not? Is this the weapon of a Dao-attainer?
" "Exactly!
" Shen Mu drew the Tribulation Sword, his features radiant, his brows dancing. "After I entered the ancestral court's Jade Capital City, I found this Dao Sword in one of its temples. When I tried it, its power was truly without limit.
" The Lady of Heaven Qiang breathed a sigh of relief and smiled.
"To cultivate by borrowing external things — Heavenly Venerable Mu, your road has gone astray.
You may as well hand this sword over to this Palace. .
.
hand it over to Us! " Two baleful blood-blades suddenly shot up from the River of Chaos and clove toward Shen Mu! These two God-Slaying Mystic Blades were of peerless power — even the Lord of Heaven's physical body could not withstand them.
Just now, merely sweeping over Shen Mu's head, they had wounded him.
The Lady of Heaven Qiang had deliberately hidden these two god-blades in ambush within the River of Chaos, meaning to strike by stealth and kill with a single blow. She knew as well that Shen Mu was slippery beyond holding; if he fled, she feared she could never keep him, and so she had resorted to ambush.
What she did not know was that her two baleful god-blades had never once escaped Shen Mu's eyes. Had it been anyone else, unable to see through the River of Chaos, she might well have succeeded; but the vertical eye in Shen Mu's brow could pierce the River of Chaos and even glimpse scenes of past universes.
The two God-Slaying Mystic Blades she had hidden had long been as clear to him as daylight, and not the slightest stirring of those blades eluded his gaze. Shen Mu drew his sword; the blade-light flickered and became Illusory-Form Guest Taiji, meeting the two God-Slaying Mystic Blades head-on.
In one instant, the two blades became like long blood-colored dragons linked under his sword-work — an unrolling dragon-shaped diagram of the Grand Terminus! One dragon was yin, one yang; yin and yang locked fast, joined into a single whole.
The Lady of Heaven Qiang, caught unprepared, tried to reclaim her two god-blades, but Shen Mu, treading his little boat, passed straight through the dragon-shaped Taiji diagram, his sword aiming at her brow upon the Dao Tree! Illusory-Form Guest Taiji was the ninth heaven of Shen Mu's Dao realm; yet with his sword path fully matured and merged with his divine-arts Dao realm, the Tribulation Sword had brought him three heavens more, and this one stance had thus become the twelfth heaven of his sword path.
What the stance altered was the form of the God-Slaying Mystic Blades: their bodies were rendered insubstantial and transformed into a state of yin and yang, robbing the Lady of Heaven Qiang of control over the two blades for a time and opening her to his stroke.
It was at once sword path and divine art; displayed from his hands, it was mastery beyond mastery, and even the Lady of Heaven Qiang had never seen such abstruse peerless skill.