Chapter 1694 — Drawing His Sword to Subdue the Champions

"So you are finally about to show your true faces?"

Shen Mu laughed heartily and raised a hand to overturn the dining table, but unexpectedly the old man and the old woman moved as one, four hands pressing down on the table; Shen Mu heaved with all his strength and still could not send it flying!

"With us here, the Seventh Young Master need not dream of overturning this table!"

The old man and the old woman smiled faintly, then their faces flushed crimson, their four arms crackling and creaking, and they nearly came to their feet under his heave; each was shaken inwardly: "Miluo Palace's Old Seventh — what monstrous strength of body!"

The two of them were beings who had attained the Dao four or five cosmic epochs past; though sealed and suppressed here, their might was vast — and yet they had nearly been lifted by Shen Mu.

Just as Shen Mu set to overturning the table, the girl with ram-horn braids, who had been squatting beneath the tree slurping noisily from her bowl, flashed onto the tabletop and pressed the tilting table back down.

The girl was nimble of limb; her bowl, now empty, she clapped down over Shen Mu's face.

"I offered you a sweet fruit and you would not eat it! Then today there shall be no sweet fruit for you!"

Before Shen Mu's eyes all was a white blur; the space within the bowl contracted at furious speed, everything before him spinning, even his fleshly body and primal spirit spinning with it, as though it meant to drag him into the bowl!

Shen Mu's vertical eye at the center of his brow opened, and a beam of primal purple light shot out, ringing with a ding as it pierced all the distorted space and struck the bottom of the bowl.

"You can use divine abilities?"

The girl's arm was shaken numb, the bowl dashed from her hand; at once she stood upon the tabletop and attacked with hands and feet in a frenzy.

Shen Mu held the table with one hand and lifted the other, meeting the girl's assault with his single arm.

His strength was immense; within a few moves he sent the girl on the tabletop flying.

The girl grunted and cried: "He can use divine abilities, and his fleshly body is absurdly strong — be careful!"

Boom!

The girl crashed into a great tree, and the impact set that tree's Dao light and Dao resonance bursting forth all at once, a blaze of splendor!

Behind Shen Mu, the woman sneered: "Spurn the toast and you shall drink the forfeit — the Seventh Young Master is a base creature himself!"

From somewhere she drew out a laundry paddle and smashed it down at the back of Shen Mu's head.

A halo of light burst from the back of Shen Mu's head, chaos qi surging out, and within the chaos qi stood a palace of chaos, which blocked the paddle with a clang!

Across from Shen Mu, the pig-slaughtering youth called Xiao Shang reached out and drew the blade stuck in the tabletop; with the divine blade in hand, Shen Mu's every hair stood on end!

The greatest threat to him was not the old man, the old woman, the woman, or the girl, but this youth!

These people dwelled within the First Young Master's seal, their cultivation suppressed, so that divine abilities could not be used, leaving only the strength of their flesh.

And plainly each of them had their own way of attaining the Dao; the power of their divine abilities was greater, and with divine abilities unusable, little of their skill remained. Only this Xiao Shang walked a different road — he was more like a butcher, one of those who had cultivated combat techniques to their absolute limit!

Of course, Xiao Shang had not attained the Dao through combat techniques; had he, the First Young Master's seal could never have suppressed him, could never have sealed him — with the strength of his flesh alone he would have been able to cut his way out.

His combat techniques had not attained the Dao, yet his killing intent was so dense it surpassed even Tiansha and the God-Slaying Mystic Blade; he must have attained the Dao through slaughter and cultivated the Dao of Slaughter.

Even so, he had killed too many living things; his combat cultivation joined to the Dao of Slaughter made him, by any measure, the most fearsome existence in the village.

Even with his cultivation suppressed by the First Young Master's seal, his strength was enough to threaten Shen Mu.

With the blade in his hand, his blood and qi blazed, and behind him arose the vision of countless floating corpses drifting upon a sea of blood!

Within that vision were Dao trees hacked in two, Dao fruits split open, the corpses of Dao-attained beings slain — a horror beyond reckoning.

Shen Mu at once paid no heed to the pig charging toward him; turning his palm, the Tribulation Sword appeared, and he cut level and even to meet Xiao Shang's blade.

Tiandu's Chapter of Opening Heaven.

Xiao Shang struck vertically; Shen Mu cut horizontally.

At that one slash, every countenance present changed drastically. The old man and the old woman instantly ceased pressing upon the table, and four hands together attacked Shen Mu, four arms wheeling, the assault like a storm of wind and rain!

Even beneath the table, their four legs lashed wildly at Shen Mu.

As they attacked, suddenly around Shen Mu appeared five great ore veins — Taiyi, Taichu, Taishi, Taisu, Taiji — and the five mines pressed down together, pinning the two elders fast.

On the other side, the girl, struck down upon the Dao tree, at once plucked a Dao fruit, bit hard upon her tongue, and spat a mouthful of Dao blood over it; the power within the fruit erupted and rushed at Shen Mu.

Where the Dao fruit flew, a vast abyss of Guixu surfaced and swallowed the fruit into its depths.

And that pig, its body whole again, planted its two hind legs and rose upright like a man, tusks bared, eyes like bronze bells, fire spewing from snout and mouth, its bristles keen as steel needles; it reached out a great hand, seized a Dao tree, and smashed it down at Shen Mu with all its might!

Boom —

Shen Mu still sat unmoving, yet behind him the World Tree appeared, its crown a canopy, blotting out sky and sun, and it blocked the pig's Dao tree!

The woman flitted at furious speed, the paddle smashing down again and again, but for all her boundless brute strength, the Chaos Palace ever stood before her, barring her from closing in.

This single slash of Shen Mu's was as though the Dao itself had come, as though a whole and complete great Dao were unleashing every ounce of its potential.

And the potential of that great Dao was chaos cloven, heaven and earth opened.

What is a Dao sword?

This is a Dao sword!

All the visions behind Xiao Shang vanished utterly, and new visions appeared!

That scene was as if heaven opened and earth split apart, a single ray of light dividing the boundless sea of blood, and within that vast thin line a new heaven and earth was born.

A line of blood appeared at his waist.

The Dao-might stored within Tiandu's Chapter of Opening Heaven erupted, violent waves surging in every direction, blasting the crowd away.

The pig-god set the Dao tree upright, both feet gathering strength, pouring all its power into bracing against the tree, yet the tree, and it with it, kept retreating, plowing three deep furrows in the earth.

Boom!

It crashed into the house behind, and at once the house collapsed.

Elsewhere, the old man and the old woman soared into the air, uttering harsh shout after shout; aged as they were, their hands and feet moved with startling swiftness, and they shattered the seal of the five mines.

The two parted, each alighting upon a Dao tree, killing intent roiling, and cried in stern tones: "Lord Shang —"

The girl, meanwhile, plunged into Shen Mu's great abyss of Guixu; the next moment she flew out, garments in disarray, clutching her Dao fruit, only to be sent tumbling head over heels by the shock wave before she barely steadied herself.