Chapter 1678 — The Defiled Land of the Void

Taichu made a prompt decision, hurling that tower of flesh and blood out of the One-Qi Daluo Heaven, then sent the Daluo Heaven hurtling away with a roar!

"Since there is no longer any way to stop him from breaking free, and no time to sink him in the river, then I will cast him into the Ultimate Void! Whether the Ultimate Void can grind him to nothing will be left entirely to luck!

" The One-Qi Daluo Heaven vanished without a trace.

Taichu was also afraid that if Shen Mu broke free, he would surely kill him without mercy.

If he could not win, he could retreat; the Ultimate Void was so vast that so long as he hid himself, no matter how great Shen Mu's powers, he would never find him. The Void was silent, utterly empty, with only that tower of flesh and blood drifting alone in the Ultimate Void.

Shen Mu's voice came from within the pagoda, laughing: "Taichu is gone.

" The eight-armed demon god Dutian Demon King lowered his divine bow and said in astonishment: "Drawing the bowstring really frightened him away?

He is a Dao-attainer - how did he become a bird startled by the mere twang of a bow? " The bow in his hand was only an ordinary divine bow; the twanging sounds that had come from the pagoda just now were simply him drawing the bowstring and shooting a few empty arrows.

"Taichu is a man who loves to scheme but lacks resolve, fierce in appearance yet timid at heart; he forgets his life at the sight of petty gain, but cherishes his skin when it comes to great deeds. " Shen Mu said unhurriedly: "You drew the bowstring and shot a few empty arrows, making him mistake it for me having broken through this Hongmeng Transformation Dao divine art and freed myself from those Dao chains.

Naturally he fled in panic like a bird startled by the bow.

The Ten Heavenly Venerates are all like this - rarely is there one of true valor and decisiveness. Come to think of it, Haotian Heavenly Venerate was among the better of them. " Breaking the Hongmeng Transformation Dao was easy to speak of, and Lan Yutian was full of confidence, but the actual process of breaking it would take a very long time. By then, the tower of flesh and blood might already have been delivered by Taichu into the Chaos River; that was why Shen Mu had the Dutian Demon King imitate the sound of Dao chains snapping, to frighten Taichu away.

He knew Taichu's character exceedingly well. Because Taichu had been framed by the Great Emperor, he had been forced to emerge into the world ahead of time and became the Great Emperor's adopted son. Working under the Great Emperor, he was cautious in every way, while secretly plotting how to eliminate him.

Yet it took billions of years before he obtained that opportunity.

And this opportunity was given to him by Taiyi; had Taiyi not transformed into the Dao and incited the ancient gods to rebel against the Great Emperor, Taichu would likely have continued to endure in silence. After Taichu became Heavenly Emperor, he was full of ambition, but then he was overthrown by Cloud Heavenly Venerate and Haotian Heavenly Venerate.

Afterwards he became Xiao, scurrying about for petty gains, feigning compliance with the other Heavenly Venerates, and for a million years made no move at all. He thought of restoration, but never put it into action, concerning himself only with concealing his identity.

Later, when Shen Mu emerged, Taichu made various plans that seemed flawless, but the man cherished his body and his life too much. Thus he was defeated by Haotian Heavenly Venerate and had to submit, letting his son Haotian Heavenly Venerate become Heavenly Emperor.

And yet sometimes, for the sake of some trifling gain, he would instead dare to risk his life!

"A man who loves to scheme but lacks resolve, fierce in appearance yet timid at heart; forgets his life at the sight of petty gain, but cherishes his skin when it comes to great deeds" - that was the finest assessment of him! The tower of flesh and blood drifted quietly through the Ultimate Void.

Shen Mu was learning from Lan Yutian how to transform all his cultivation into Hongmeng primordial qi.

With no one controlling it, the tower was carried by the wind of cold silence toward unknown places.

Just how vast was the Ultimate Void? No one could answer that question. Even Shen Mu knew only that the Ultimate Void was countless times larger than the known universe, but he did not know where its boundaries lay.

The Void contained no matter; everything here would decompose infinitely until it became nothingness.

The voidification of the first layer of the Void was not so terrible, but the deeper one went, the stronger the power of voidification became.

Even existences at the level of Heavenly Venerates could not linger long in the thirty-fifth layer of the Void, or they too would risk being voidified. As for the Ultimate Void, only Dao-attainers could preserve themselves within it.

Yet the tower of flesh and blood was exceedingly strange - it actually blocked the wind of cold silence of the Ultimate Void, forming a barrier that protected the Hongmeng primordial qi Shen Mu had become, and the people of Jingping within. The pagoda drifted for an unknown length of time, then suddenly gave a slight jolt, as if it had struck something, and came to a halt, moving no more. Within the pagoda, all was silent. Lan Yutian and Dutian Demon King looked out through Shen Mu's eyes, and saw that where the pagoda had come to rest was a stretch of ruins, broken walls and crumbling remnants everywhere.

There were incomparably ancient buildings here, but all had collapsed; even so, when the wind of cold silence blew past, it could dissolve even these ruins. "The layout of these ruins looks like another Yujing City! " Lan Yutian had been to the Ancestral Court's Yujing City, and at once noticed something, saying in surprise: "It's just that the layout of the seventy-two halls is different!

How strange - could there be a second Yujing in this world?

" He was about to examine it closely when suddenly a surge of Chaos qi rushed out from the ruins, blocking their view.

After a while, when the wind of cold silence had dispersed the Chaos qi, that strange place had vanished. Lan Yutian clicked his tongue in wonder.

The wind of cold silence drove the tower of flesh and blood onward, drifting through the Ultimate Void again. After an unknown length of time, the tower struck something, giving off a clicking sound.

Looking out through Shen Mu's eyes, Lan Yutian saw that what the tower had collided with was a massive skull - a skull countless times larger than the tower itself!

The skull had no flesh left, only bone, and was being blown by the wind of cold silence to who knew where! Yet in that collision just now, some of the blood threads on the pagoda had stained that skull.

Shen Mu's vertical eye was truly powerful; even with Lan Yutian watching through the pagoda, he could see clearly.

On the surface of that massive skull, that trace of flesh and blood was actually writhing and growing!

Lan Yutian was horrified, not knowing what was going on with that skull, or why flesh and blood could grow once it adhered to it. A gust of the wind of cold silence blew over, and the flesh on the skull rapidly dispersed; but some of the flesh that had already grown took the chance to burrow deep into the skull, hiding within the cranium and trying to escape the wind.

Lan Yutian's heart pounded: "Where has the wind of cold silence carried us in the Ultimate Void? How can there be such strange things here?

" He could no longer see where the wind had blown the skull, but what had just happened seemed to show that there was still spirituality in the skull, that something dwelled within it, and that through that trace of flesh from the tower it was trying to revive a physical body!

"The Ultimate Void was formed when the universe was opened up; one could say it has existed since the origin of the universe.