Chapter 1741 — On the Misty River, Clouds Unfurl and Fold

The instant Lan Yutian saw Lady Yuanmu rush out, he shot out after her. Lady Yuanmu was grievously wounded, and this was a rare opportunity for him.

Though he lacked battle experience, over the years he had watched the great war between the Heavenly Court and Wuyou Township, and he had begun by studying the moves exchanged between the gods and demons who faced each other on those battlefields, learning a great deal. He had always been a clever man, one who could infer three things from one and grasp the whole from a single part, and he improved swiftly.

In the brief instant the two clashed in the sky, Lady Yuanmu's divine ability and Lan Yutian's burst forth at once, yet they broke apart at a single touch, and Lan Yutian's heart sank.

"The one in this body is not Yuanmu! " In the very moment he traded blows with his opponent, he sensed it: Lady Yuanmu, too gravely wounded, had fallen silent of her own accord.

Now the one who controlled this body and fought him was the Empress, or rather, the Goddess of Guixu!

"The reincarnation power my brother used to trap the Goddess of Guixu was broken open by her when Yuanmu was wounded.

But this is a good thing! " Behind Lan Yutian, divine artifact after divine artifact took his form and struck, rising and falling in turn, hurtling madly at the Empress, and he thought, "With this, the divine ability I left within her body can take effect!

" The Empress suddenly gave a muffled groan. Within her, the Dao of Guixu was twisted by a strange power, and part of that Great Dao was transformed into the Dao of Taiyi!

Caught off guard, her divine ability fell at once into disorder; she was gravely wounded by the swarm of artifact-Lan Yutians, coughed blood, and was left with no choice but to charge upward into the sky, trying to evade him. Lan Yutian's gaze flickered, and he followed close behind.

In the Taqing Realm of Wuyou Township, he had taken advantage of the moment when Lady Yuanmu, sunk in reincarnation, lost herself, and planted his own divine ability within her body. His path differed from Shen Mu's.

Shen Mu had stolen the teachings of the Yin Son of Heaven, carried forward that one's unfinished Dao of Reincarnation, and used it to trap the Goddess of Guixu, forcibly creating the personality and consciousness of Lady Yuanmu to restrain her.

At that time, Shen Mu was helpless as to how to break the Goddess of Guixu's Great Dao, and could only seal her. The Goddess of Guixu had already attained the Dao; by rights, even destroying her and reducing her to Chaos would not kill her, for she would be reborn.

Shen Mu himself had cultivated the Dao of Guixu, had planted a Chaos Lotus and made its Chaos Lotus flowers bloom, and so knew that he could not be rid of the Goddess of Guixu. Moreover, even Shen Mu's reincarnation seal was only a stopgap; it could never keep the Goddess of Guixu sealed beneath Lady Yuanmu's consciousness forever. Sooner or later she would break through the cycle of reincarnation and devour Yuanmu's consciousness!

Lan Yutian, by contrast, thought only of how to break the Great Dao of Guixu; as for whether to kill the Goddess of Guixu, he had no such notion in his heart.

He set to work from the Innate Five Ultimates, borrowing the reincarnation power Shen Mu had left behind, and planted the Five Ultimates Reincarnation Seal within the Goddess of Guixu's body. His purpose was simple. The Goddess of Guixu could devour all things and turn them into the qi of Chaos; thus in battle her magic power grew ever stronger, and since she could not be killed, one day her cultivation and strength would surpass yours.

But Chaos gives birth to the Five Ultimates, and the Five Ultimates Reincarnation Seal Lan Yutian left behind was meant to steal the Goddess of Guixu's magic power: when she fought, the qi of Chaos would transform into the Dao of Taiyi, into the Dao of Taichu, passing through the changes of the Five Ultimates, so that she could never bring forth her full strength. What Shen Mu sealed was the Goddess of Guixu's consciousness; what Lan Yutian sealed was her magic power and her Great Dao. Only, Lan Yutian could not accomplish this step on his own, and so he had to borrow the reincarnation power Shen Mu had left behind.

The Empress, too, sensed that something was wrong with her body. When she roused her cultivation and magic power, alien Daos filled her; these alien Daos were robbing her of her cultivation, causing her intense suffering, and she could not bring out even half of her strength!

Lan Yutian pursued and struck all the way, while the Empress fought as she fled, yet she could never shake him off. "Drive her into the Ultimate Void, and she is dead for certain.

" Lan Yutian's gaze flickered, and he thought, "This is the very method the Cloud Heavenly Venerable used against the Second Young Master of Miluo Palace. Once the Empress is driven into the Ultimate Void, part of the Dao of Guixu within her will transform into the Dao of the Five Ultimates, and then she will die all the faster! " Yet the Empress clearly knew the perils of the Ultimate Void.

Even though he wounded her again and again, she never once fled deep into the void to hide. Just then, above their heads, the Ultimate Void burst open. They hastily looked up, each of them, and saw that within the Ultimate Void a Taichu Daluo Heaven, more than half merged, was tilting and cracking apart!

That Taichu Daluo Heaven had long been battered and riddled with holes, and the merging of the Yiqi Daluo Heaven with the Divine Consciousness Daluo Heaven was incomplete, not yet fully joined.

On the cracked Daluo Heaven, two Dao Trees, more than half merged, had already been destroyed by the wind of heat death, burned down to blackened stumps; the Dao Flowers on the Dao Trees had perished, and the Dao Fruits had been shattered by the Hongmeng divine ability of the Second Young Master of Miluo Palace.

And on this Daluo Heaven, now falling out of the Ultimate Void, the battle between the Cloud Heavenly Venerable and the Second Young Master Wuji had reached its final stage. When the Empress and Lan Yutian raised their heads to look, they saw the Second Young Master of Miluo Palace standing on the half of the Daluo Heaven still within the Ultimate Void, and the Cloud Heavenly Venerable standing on the half falling out of it, still fighting to the death! The Cloud Heavenly Venerable's Taichu Imperial Sword, fused with the Dao of Taichu, burst forth with its final radiance and pierced through the body of the Second Young Master Wuji; at that same instant, the Second Young Master Wuji's palm pressed against his forehead!

The collapse of the Daluo Heaven grew more violent!

At this moment the Daluo Heaven did not seem to be crumbling beneath the force of their blows, but rather to have fallen into a sacrifice.

Lan Yutian was highly intelligent and saw that this was a blood sacrifice; the Empress was widely experienced, and at once recognized it as the Dao of Sacrifice in which the Great Emperor had been so skilled. But neither of them knew that the Cloud Heavenly Venerable had inherited the Great Emperor's Daluo Heaven, and with it the Great Emperor's cultivation methods, perfecting what had been incomplete in them. Among these was the method of attaining the Dao through sacrifice that the Great Emperor had obtained from the Primordial Sage of Miluo Palace.

The method the Great Emperor received had not been complete, and the Cloud Heavenly Venerable had filled it out for him. The shattered Taichu Daluo Heaven had in truth been offered up by the Cloud Heavenly Venerable as a direct sacrifice, transformed into a torrent of the Dao of Taichu that followed his sword as it pierced into the body of the Second Young Master Wuji!

What he sacrificed was not only the Taichu Daluo Heaven, but also the Taichu Imperial Sword in his hand. With such immense energy, he sacrificed the Second Young Master of Miluo Palace to the Ultimate Void!