Chapter 1822 — The Arts of the Heaven-Opening Host
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
Though she could not see her daughter now, she would surely see her in the future! The couple settled down in the Ancestral Court, choosing to dwell exactly midway between the Jade Capital of the Ancestral Court and the World Tree.
Shen Mu passed on his insights and attainments to Ling Yuxiu, hoping she might thereby advance by leaps and bounds to a profound realm of cultivation.
Beneath the World Tree all was chaos, with rotting corpses everywhere.
At the very moment two years ago when Shen Mu and Ling Yuxiu had boarded the golden ship and entered the Jade Capital's long river of chaos, the Fourth Young Master had been presiding over the Sixteenth Epoch's calamity of destruction, personally directing a war against the World Tree! Three hall masters of the Miluo Palace led the Dao-achievers of the Jade Capital's Miluo Palace in a slaughter beneath the World Tree; at the same time, a zither string connecting the Sixteenth Epoch to the World Tree erupted with power, bathing Old Man Wuya's forces in blood!
The Fourth Young Master's zither string was drawn by Haotian Venerable; as the zither note sounded, the Fourth Young Master used the string as a medium to transmit his divine powers beneath the World Tree!
And the three great hall masters newly descended from the Miluo Palace led more than a dozen Dao-achievers in a charge toward the World Tree amid the zither notes; that battle left countless prehistoric powerhouses beneath the World Tree dead or wounded! The deaths of these powerhouses made the power of the blood sacrifice ever richer!
Meanwhile, on another front, Kaihuang Shen Ye, the Moon Venerable, Lord Shang, and others seized the chance to cut their way beneath the World Tree; in the midst of the great battle, Xu Shenghua and Lan Yutian carried the half-dead Tai Yi forward. Their faction was the weakest of the three, yet though Tai Yi was half-crippled, his strength remained formidable, a great deterrent to both the Miluo Palace and the World Tree.
Not long after the battle began, Tai Shi, who had already attained the Dao, came to their aid with the Dao Ancestor Gongsun Yan.
Tai Shi's attainment of the Dao revealed stunning combat prowess; he could contend with Dao-achievers who possessed several Dao fruits, falling short only by a fraction of the hall-master level. The attainment of the Five Tai was the most exalted form of innate Dao attainment; Tai Shi had also followed Shen Mu for a long time, and Shen Mu had not concealed from him the insights gained from studying the transformations of the Five Tai, allowing his vision and understanding to long since exceed his own shackles.
Tai Shi had also fought the Ancient God of the Supreme Ultimate and his sister for decades, deepening his understanding of the world's great Daos and of the Five Tai.
Such was the advantage of innate power; others could only envy it. His emergence from seclusion this time was crucial to the elevation of Jing Ping's combat strength, and especially exerted great influence over the Jade Capital's blood sacrifice.
Tai Shi intercepted the energy of the blood sacrifice and transformed it into the spiritual essence and power of heaven and earth, strengthening the seal Shen Mu had set in the Ancestral Court; though he could not contend with the Third and Fourth Young Masters, intercepting a portion was still within his power. In this way, the descent of the Miluo Palace's Dao-achievers could be temporarily slowed.
This bitter battle between the two sides was also the reason the Miluo Palace's hall masters and Dao-achievers had not intercepted Shen Mu on the road.
In the end, Old Man Wuya failed in his contest for Shen Lingyun; returning from the past to the World Tree, he severed the Fourth Young Master's zither string, and only then did the battle come to an end.