Chapter 1677 — Union with the Primordial Dao

As Shen Mu's sword thrust toward him, Taichu only stirred his fingers but made no move to parry.

With his strength, it would have been no great difficulty to stop that sword, yet by some unaccountable impulse he chose to let it pass.

The phantom of the Lingxiao Hall shattered, and he immediately felt the power of the Lingxiao Hall draining away.

That Lingxiao Hall was a force granted to him by the Third Young Master of the Miluo Palace; it was not the Lingxiao Hall of his own Heavenly Court, and the loss of this power made him breathe more easily even as it made him even warier of Shen Mu's strength. Within the One-Qi Daluo Heaven, figures rose and fell one after another; countless Dao chains interlaced, and the attacks of the twenty prehistoric Dao-attainers had become exceedingly strange. They no longer struck directly at Shen Mu but used their own flesh as mediums to activate their respective divine halls.

Those divine halls were incarnations of their own Daos. Their attainments were so lofty that the bodies they now wore were utterly unable to unleash the full might of the halls. These current bodies had been shaped for them by Taichu out of his own blood and the Arcane Art of Creation, and were far inferior to the power of their true bodies.

If the force they drew from their halls grew too strong, it would rupture and dissolve their present frames. So, using themselves as conduits, they madly channeled the power of their halls; their flesh split open under the terrible force, every one of them drenched in blood, as if their bodies might burst at any moment!

Before long, Dao chains were interweaving and crisscrossing in both the One-Qi Daluo Heaven and Shen Mu's Divine Treasury domains. Countless chains combined, locking together like the parts of a machine of peerless precision.

Shen Mu swung his sword and cut down several of his foes, but he was beginning to grow agitated.

There were too many chains. Chains of monstrous thickness had formed a net, constricting his Divine Treasury domains and hemming in his movements, and even his World Tree was now wrapped and shackled by them! Shen Mu felt the circulation of his magic power grow more and more sluggish, and his primordial spirit gradually lost all room to maneuver.

"Not good.

The very structure of these Dao chains looks like a divine technique created specifically against my cultivation method.

. . Of course!

I fought them before I ascended the Chaos Hall; they sounded out my arts and techniques, found my flaws, and created a combined attack aimed straight at them!

" No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than the dozen-odd surviving prehistoric Dao-attainers suddenly roared in unison: "Seventh Young Master!

This is a divine technique the Third Young Master created against your flaws! " Boom! The countless Dao chains seethed, swollen until they burst the bodies of the dozen-odd Dao-attainers apart. One by one their flesh exploded, blood and gore mingling with the chains and fusing into them.

Flesh bred wildly upon the chains, making them thicker and thicker!

In an instant, writhing fleshy chains pinned down Shen Mu's Divine Treasury domains.

Shen Mu was at the thirty-second heaven of the Dao Realm, with thirty-two layers of Divine Treasury domains, and every one of them was now pierced through by chains of living flesh!

In a flash, all thirty-two of Shen Mu's Divine Treasury domains were rusted over and covered with scars. Those mountain-thick chains stretched every which way — some pierced the sky, some bored into the earth, some stabbed into the Five Mines, some plunged into the Great Abyss of Guixu!

Flesh crept along the chains like silk threads, reaching out in every direction, rusting his domains and polluting the sun, moon, and stars!

Of the dozen-odd Dao-attainers, only one still retained his physical body; all the rest had burst apart and merged into that ghastly web of chains, and only he alone had kept himself whole. "Seventh Young Master. " The prehistoric Dao-attainer wiped the blood from his mouth, grinned slyly, and bowed low: "This is a divine technique the Third Young Master prepared for you, and he told me to convey his regards.

" He straightened and activated the technique. "Primordial Dao-Dissolution! " The countless chains erupted — boom, boom, boom!

Shen Mu's Divine Treasury domains collapsed one after another, crushing together!

The collapsing domains shrank frantically back into Shen Mu's body, diving inside together with the fleshy chains! At once Shen Mu felt the Daos in his body run out of control; his Dao arts, runes, Dao patterns, and Dao chains all disintegrated, and even his primordial spirit was ground to powder.

Bang!

Beneath the World Tree, his body burst apart, transforming into primordial qi! That mass of primordial qi was purple, full and translucent; within the purple mist, every one of Shen Mu's Daos could be seen shattered, and even the Great Dao of Guixu had not survived.

The power of that strike was truly terrible.

The Third Young Master of the Miluo Palace had suffered an earlier defeat — Shen Mu had ambushed him with a red-rope knot and broken the phantom of his Lingxiao Hall with a single sword-stroke.

Now, he had won his round back!

Yet oddly enough, within the primordial purple qi that Shen Mu had become, an eyeball still floated. A light blazed from that eye, and the primordial purple qi swelled, drawing the World Tree into its midst.

The World Tree's branches and leaves drifted in the purple mist while its roots slowly unfurled. The only thing that had not been destroyed by the dreadful Primordial Dao-Dissolution art was this eye of Shen Mu's.

Within the eye was not only the Dao dew of Taiyi, but also a drop of Dao dew from the Dao tree of the master of the Miluo Palace.

Everything of Shen Mu's had been shattered into primordial qi — everything except this eye.

And this eye became his hope of resurrection. "Seventh Young Master, no point in struggling!

" The prehistoric Dao-attainer grinned and drove the chains wrapped around the World Tree with all his might. Chain after chain whirred and wove around the ball of primordial qi, soon knitting into a tower of primordial purple qi that sealed the primordial qi and the World Tree inside. Flesh squirmed over the surface of this Primordial Tower, and in a matter of moments it became a giant tower of living flesh, towering within the One-Qi Daluo Heaven.

The Dao-attainer spat out a mouthful of blood, but his spirit was high. He glanced at Taichu and said, "The Seventh Young Master has been suppressed by me. Taichu, take me to your Youdu at once!

" Taichu was thoroughly baffled and asked, "Dao-brother, since we cannot kill the Seventh Young Master of the Miluo Palace, why not sink him into the Long River of Chaos, but instead take him to Youdu?

In my opinion, we should send him to the Ancestral Court's Jade Capital right away — I fear that a delay may bring unexpected trouble! " The Dao-attainer shook his head. "There is a blood-sacrifice formation in Youdu.

The Third Young Master's purpose is not merely to take him prisoner, but to sacrifice him.

He is hard to kill, but with the blood-sacrifice formation he can be offered up to the Sixteenth Era!

" A smile spread across his face, and his voice grew stirred: "His power is not enough to trade for the Third Young Master, but it is more than enough to trade for one of the Third Young Master's Dao-fruit avatars!

Once the Third Young Master's avatar arrives in this world, then every Dao-attainer in the entire Jade Capital of the Ancestral Court will be able to descend. . .

" Before he could finish, Taichu raised his hand and drove a finger through his brow! The Dao-attainer's head burst with a bang, his body swayed, and he toppled to the ground.