Chapter 1689 — The Chapter of Heaven's Capital Shaping the World

The scene before Shen Mu's eyes abruptly changed. All around him, chaos qi surged in a frenzy, terrifying beyond measure; he seemed to stand at the very center of the great kalpa of cosmic destruction.

He felt pressure and heat of unimaginable power!

The Ultimate Void was gone from this place. The entire universe had become one mass of chaos, boundless in pressure, boundless in heat!

Within that seething chaos, only a scant few Dao achievers had survived. He saw the Jade Capital City amid the chaos — that would be the Master of Miluo Palace and his followers — and beyond them, strange and uncanny things drifting in this final chaos: the World Tree, the Abyssal Gulf of Guixu.

Shen Mu "saw" the figure of the Master of Miluo Palace, standing distant and towering before Miluo Palace, the Dao Tree bursting forth with radiant light, guarding the Jade Capital City of the Sixth Era's universe.

There, purple qi hung thick, a patch of tranquility within the chaotic cosmos.

He also "saw" that all around him were palaces and gate-towers, their layout much like Miluo Palace's. The altar beneath his feet remained, forged from chaos stone.

He "looked" in all directions and saw Dao achievers standing one by one around him, their faces alight with expectation.

Then, in shock and dread, Shen Mu "saw" a familiar figure!

Ling Tianzun!

Shen Mu's mind roared with thunder — he had actually seen Ling Tianzun!

Ling Tianzun was among the Dao achievers of this divine city? How could that be?

And yet, how intimately did he know Ling Tianzun? The two had been teacher and friend to each other. In early years, Shen Mu had guided Ling Tianzun in the Dao of Creation and urged her to pioneer the Unchanging Divine Art; later, Ling Tianzun had transmitted to him Dao arts and divine abilities, and had sent him back to the early years of Longhan!

There was no mistaking her!

The woman beside the altar, the woman among the Dao achievers of the Sixth Era's universe — she was Ling Tianzun!

"How could Ling appear in the past?"

Yet his "sight" was not under his own control. He must have set his feet into the footprints of this man called Tiandu, and so his field of vision had become Tiandu's perspective.

He saw the figure of "himself," saw the axe in his own hand.

Shen Mu was stunned for a moment; the axe seemed somewhat familiar. He had seen such an axe in Tai Yi's hand.

When Tai Yi transformed into a giant and severed the World Tree, he had used a similar axe. After the World Tree was reborn, Shen Mu had borrowed Tai Yi's axe to fell trees, and had once tried to study that axe through and through. Though he had gained no real understanding of it, he would never mistake it!

Yet the axe in "his hand" differed somewhat from Tai Yi's axe — not entirely identical — but he could see a quality that came from the same lineage.

"Could this Tiandu be Tai Yi?"

Scarcely had the thought crossed Shen Mu's mind when suddenly he saw "himself" gather all his strength and swing that divine axe!

At the same moment, the Dao achievers below the altar also poured out every ounce of their power, joining with "him" to push the divine axe's might to its utmost!

In that instant, chaos was split open!

Shen Mu witnessed it all from the perspective of the opener of the heavens, and the shock and awe in his heart were beyond compare. Never had he seen a scene more magnificent than this, nor one more stirring to the spirit!

He witnessed the birth of a universe!

He saw these Dao achievers use their own strength to open the heavens and split the earth, unleashing their Dao arts and divine abilities, carving a new universe out of chaos!

Such a magnificent spectacle — Shen Mu had evolved it countless times within his own Yuan Tai divine treasury. But only when "witnessing it with his own eyes" did he realize that what he had evolved was not true opening of the heavens and splitting of the earth. The evolutions in his divine treasury had never surpassed his own imagination.

What "Tiandu" and these Dao achievers did, however, was true creation — the opening of heaven and earth, the evolution of cosmos and primordial wilderness!

After they split open the chaos, infinite energy burst forth — boundless heat, boundless light, boundless space, expanding outward!

At this time there was no matter; the entire primordial universe was a mass of rapidly expanding energy and molten fluid. Nor was there Dao.

Yet in the very next instant, the two innate Daos — Tai Yi and Tai Chu — emerged in succession!

The speed at which these two innate Daos evolved was terrifying; in less than a single instant they completed their evolution, and the Void was born at the same moment!

The power of the Void drove the entire universe to expand at incredible speed, pushing the energy apart from one another.

Shen Mu stood there and watched as this mass of primordial universe continued to evolve. The whole universe was a mass of Tai Chu's single qi, existing only in the form of qi, with no other matter.

Some three hundred thousand years passed before the primordial universe, driven by the power of the Void, entered the Tai Shi form, and the Dao of Tai Shi was born from Tai Chu's single qi.

Layer upon layer of Void was born, driving the evolution of the universe's matter — from Tai Shi into Tai Su, and from Tai Su into Tai Ji.

By the time the stars and constellations had evolved, the sun, moon, stars and constellations revolving in mutual motion, the star-rivers, star-diagrams and star-systems taking shape, the Dao of Tai Ji began to evolve all things under heaven; the Ultimate Void appeared of itself, and the grand design of the universe unfolded, passing from the primordial state into the state of first birth.

And by then, tens of millions of years had passed.

Of course, Shen Mu stood upon the altar, viewing all this from "Tiandu's" perspective — the true passage of time had not been so long.

He regained clarity, and "his own" voice came to his ears, joyful: "The Seventh Era has been opened! Fellow Daoists, our Tiandu has finally opened up this universe!"

"Our Tiandu?"

Shen Mu was astonished. He had originally assumed that the Tiandu on the stone stele referred to this one man who opened the heavens and split the earth — that Tiandu was his title. He had not expected that, from this man's meaning, Tiandu did not refer to any single person, but to this whole group of Dao achievers!

Among them was Ling Tianzun!

Tiandu referred to the Dao achievers within this divine city — and perhaps this divine city was also called Tiandu!

"Wasn't Ling Tianzun in the Yuan Realm? How could she have come here, to the final age of the Sixth Era's universe, to open the cosmos and heaven and earth together with these Dao achievers of Tiandu?"

His mind was in a daze; he truly could not fathom when Ling Tianzun had gone to the Sixth Era.

The chaos around him gradually dispersed. Shen Mu felt a sense of loss, yet in his heart there was also elation and exultation — the scene of opening the heavens and splitting the earth had been truly breathtaking, a tremendous inspiration and illumination to him, letting him pass in but a short time through the Five Primes' evolution of the universe's opening, an immense elevation to his arts and divine abilities!

His comprehension of the Five Primes now reached an unprecedented height!

He sensed that if he could absorb what he had gained from observing this opening of heaven, the Three Cinnabar Arts of the Mystic Body could advance another step. Perhaps in less than a dozen years, his cultivation would be fully restored — even ascend another storey and reach a higher realm!

But this observation of the Tiandu Dao achievers opening heaven and splitting earth had been too brief a time. He wished desperately to ponder it again and again, but alas, there was only one chance.