Chapter 1714 — The Young Lord Descends

"I have attained the Dao!"

Lady Yuanmu was wild with joy. Then all at once her eyes darted about; she flicked her sleeve, and a great abyss opened, out of which Crown Prince Mingya and Xie Wuqi came tumbling.

Lady Yuanmu blinked and studied them with keen amusement.

Crown Prince Mingya's heart went cold. He could see that the Empress before him now was not quite the Empress of before.

Lady Yuanmu laughed softly. "A father and his son butchering each other, brothers killing brothers—what could be more amusing? Only, I must not let Taichu and Hao'er recognize the two of you..."

She roused her divine power of reincarnation, and at once the faces of Crown Prince Mingya and Xie Wuqi were altered: Mingya became a handsome young general, and Xie Wuqi a taciturn giant of a man, built like a dark tower.

Lady Yuanmu was beside herself with excitement, itching to drag the pair before Heavenly Emperor Hao that very moment and see whether he could recognize them.

Suddenly she froze where she stood, dazed, her mind a total blank.

Some while passed before Lady Yuanmu came back to herself. What had happened just now, she could not remember at all.

"Is that little slut of a sister of mine jumping out?"

A chill of fright ran through her—yet she had no inkling that she was not the true Yuanmu, but a consciousness Shen Mu had created by means of the Dao of Reincarnation.

That she had lost herself for a moment was in fact because, when Shen Mu roused the Dao of Reincarnation, the Empress had resisted, leaving that reincarnation divine power less than perfect.

"Will Hao'er cultivate the Mirror of the Abyss of Return?"

Lady Yuanmu cast the matter of her lapse from her mind. She was quivering with excitement, wishing nothing more than to see the whole world turned upside down: "Then will the Second Young Master come out? Once she is out, things will be far livelier..."

On the Great Luotian of divine consciousness, Shen Mu and Heavenly Venerable Yun sat facing each other.

After a moment Shen Mu said, "Though Heavenly Emperor Hao is suspicious by nature, he will not be able to keep himself from trying the Mirror of the Abyss of Return. He knows he is no match for me, and so, to hold on to his throne, he will try it no matter the cost! And the moment he tries it, the Second Young Master will seize his body."

Heavenly Venerable Yun had already heard the whole of it from him, and at these words he frowned. "How terrible is the Second Young Master?"

"I met the Empress just now. With my present strength I can no longer kill her. Her power can twist a heaven such as Taihuang Heaven; with nothing but the aura of her own Dao, she could tear Taihuang Heaven to shreds."

Shen Mu went on: "The power the Second Young Master can bring across is not much greater than the Empress's, but her comprehension of the Dao of the Abyss of Return runs deeper, and she is the harder to deal with."

Heavenly Venerable Yun's eyes flickered. "How strong the Empress is, I do not know. But how strong Heavenly Emperor Hao and Taichu are, I know perfectly well. Brother Mu, I want to know how strong you are now!"

Shen Mu sat there without stirring. "You mean to infer the Empress's ability from my own, and from that deduce the strength of the Second Young Master who will have possessed half of Heavenly Venerable Hao?"

Heavenly Venerable Yun nodded, rose to his feet, and reached out a hand. The Taichu Imperial Sword flew to him and settled in his grip.

Shen Mu remained seated, watching the sword in his hand.

This Imperial Sword was Taichu's innate companion treasure. Through the Great Emperor's doing it had fallen into Heavenly Venerable Yun's keeping; after his rebirth, that he might draw out the sword's full power, Yun had devoted himself to mastering the sword arts and sword dao of Jingping and Kaihuang, and by now he was a grand master of the sword.

With the sword in his hand, he bore the bearing and spirit of Kaihuang in his prime.

Heavenly Venerable Yun stepped forward and roused the Taichu Imperial Sword.

The whole Taichu primordial stone at the center of his brow blazed with light; with a ding, the radiance of the Dao shone upon the Taichu Imperial Sword.

The power of the Dao of Taichu within the Imperial Sword rose steadily. Whoever holds the Taichu primordial stone commands the Imperial Sword; in those years, with the Great Emperor's primordial stone in hand and the Imperial Sword in his grip, even Taichu had been forced to submit and become his adopted son!

At the same time Heavenly Venerable Yun deployed sword dao through the Taichu Imperial Sword. Behind him his divine-consciousness Dao Fruit revolved, and thirty-six layers of divine-consciousness domains stacked one upon another!

His own art was the Zixiao Biluo Art, which excels at drawing sustenance from other arts; purple qi stretched ten thousand zhang, streaming and swaying behind him!

The variations of this single sword stroke, its power and might, were formidable beyond all expectation!

Heavenly Venerable Yun had fought Taichu twice. The first time he could barely hold his own against Taichu; the second time he was already Taichu's equal, and even took advantage of Taichu's inattention to snatch away his share of the Taichu primordial stone!

Heavenly Venerable Yun grew stronger with every bout, and now, in this test of Shen Mu's ability, he already commanded the fighting strength of a true Dao-attainer!

He could be called the man of highest cultivation talent of the Longhan era. Shen Mu and Heavenly Venerable Hao, in place of Heavenly Venerable Yu, had transmitted the method of attaining godhood—but that had only fixed the realms of the Heavenly Palace and the Heavenly Court; as to how each realm was to be cultivated, everyone was utterly in the dark.

All stood at the same starting line, and Heavenly Venerable Yun was the first to explore and grasp the Imperial Throne realm, and the first to cultivate his way to the Imperial Throne realm!

This sword of his was truly subtle beyond number, past all describing!

And yet, when the stroke came before Shen Mu, it met Shen Mu's finger.

That finger was the Hongmeng Finger: with the primal qi of Hongmeng it framed Hongmeng runes, forming countless transformations of runes intricate beyond measure, evolving the Five Primes, evolving the ten thousand daos of the heavens!

The pointing of that finger was like the birth of the cosmos: in an instant it passed through the transformations of the Five Primes, and thereafter gave rise to the ten thousand daos of heaven and earth.

Before, that finger of Shen Mu's had held no variation at all; it simply imitated the Miluo Palace's dao patterns upon the walls of Miluo Palace. But after Heavenly Venerable Ling imparted to Shen Mu what he had comprehended over forty thousand years, Shen Mu had at last taken it all in and made it his own!

The sound that finger gave off was no longer the splitting of air, but a bell-toll like a great bronze bell. With a boom, the shock rattled Heavenly Venerable Yun's steps, and he fell back again and again, shedding the force of the blow.

Shen Mu lifted his hand and looked at his finger: at the tip was a spot of bright red.

The Taichu Imperial Sword's might was formidable indeed; this stroke of Heavenly Venerable Yun's had actually broken through his Hongmeng Finger and pierced the tip of his finger!

When Jingping's talks with the Heavenly Court broke down, Shen Mu returned from the Ancestral Court and was waylaid by Taichu; the two fought within Taichu's Great Luotian of the One Qi, and there Shen Mu fell to the schemes of the Miluo Palace's Third Young Master. Aiming at his weakness, the Third Young Master had devised the great divine power of Hongmeng's Transformation into the Dao, and through the hand of the master of the Twenty-Four Treasure Halls had used it to reduce Shen Mu to the state of Hongmeng.