Chapter 1675 — The Ferocious Sword Cleaves Taichu
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Taichu's fleshly body was immense beyond measure. He was the mightiest of the ancient gods, mightier even than Tiangong and Tubo, and before that body Shen Mu was a thing of no account.
In Taichu's contracted pupils was mirrored the tiny figure of Shen Mu, and yet behind Shen Mu rose the Thirty-Three Heavenly Palaces and the Seventy-Two Treasure Halls, more magnificent even than his own flesh; Shen Mu's primordial spirit, standing before the Chaos Hall, brimmed with unimaginable divine power. That power made him feel threatened! Especially Shen Mu's last words, which shook his mind and roused in him a dark foreboding.
In the very instant his Dao heart wavered, Shen Mu thrust out his sword!
Earlier, both Taichu and Shen Mu had spoken at length, seeming like old friends reminiscing, while in truth every word concealed a drawn blade.
The peril in it was more terrible than a battle.
They both knew the other's strength and had no certainty of victory; therefore, before the fighting began, they sought to quell the other's will to fight, weaken the other's Dao heart, and crush the other's spirit under vast pressure, so as to tilt the odds in their own favor.
Taichu had struck first, seizing on Shen Mu's three great defeats, naming each ruin aloud so that Shen Mu would see his own folly and Taichu's invincibility.
Had Shen Mu doubted himself, it would have given him the opening to seize the initiative! But Shen Mu's counterstroke was beyond his expecting: few words, and action instead, aimed at his Dao heart.
Severing the spiritual power of all heavens and myriad worlds from the Qianqiao Bridge, leaving the Heaven Court an island cut off from the world, so that the Heaven Court's armies could not hope to break into the Yuan Realm for ten or twenty years, with one stroke he had ended the Heaven Court's threat for the time being.
Then came Little Youdu and Little Xuandu in the Yuan Realm, ending the threat of Youdu's Heavenly Venerable Xu and Xuandu's Ancestral God King.
One stratagem after another, dazzling to the eye, had at last bruised Taichu's Dao heart.
Taichu had used words to shake Shen Mu's Dao heart; Shen Mu used deeds to shake his, and deeds struck harder than words. At the end Shen Mu made clear that he had become the Seventh Young Master in this universe, and revealed his Chaos Hall, at last shaking Taichu's Dao heart.
If Shen Mu had truly become the Seventh Young Master in this universe, then no rival remained to him here; whether Taichu or Emperor Haotian, the only end awaiting them was defeat.
He would fail, the Heaven Court would fail; once that seed was planted, it would take root and sprout, and there would be no stopping it.
The Calamity Sword's light reached Taichu's face in an instant.
Taichu swung his sword to meet it, retreating as he did so.
The sword in his hand was an Imperial Sword forged in imitation of his own companion treasure, and his sword doctrine was the swordsmanship he had learned in Jingping. After its reforms, Jingping was famed for the Houtian Great Dao.
The divine adepts and gods of Jingping took the perfecting of the Houtian Dao as their charge; the Heaven Court called it reform, but to the people of Jingping it was simply the application of what they had learned, with too little improvement to show for it.
They applied their learning and insights to daily life, to smithing, to medicine, to painting, and among them all the sword dao advanced fastest! Whether Shen Mu, Kaihuang, Jingping's Imperial Preceptor Jiang Baigui, or the Old Human Sovereign Su Mozhe, all were grand masters of the sword dao, and they spread their sword dao throughout Jingping; anyone with sufficient talent and insight could cultivate it, and upon their foundations open up new sword daos and new sword arts!
Taichu had two incarnations lurking in Jingping; he had learned the sword arts of Shen Mu, Kaihuang, Jiang Baigui, Su Mozhe and others, and drawing inferences from them had formed insights of his own.