Chapter 684 — The Fall of Taihuang Heaven

Shen Mu and the others stepped onto the bridge woven of willow branches and walked on. The bridge wound through a thousand turns, and beyond it drifted chaotic fragments of space, refracting light like mirrors without thickness, through which the strangest and most varied vistas could be glimpsed. The fragments of space were exceedingly perilous, drifting without the least pattern, yet this bridge alone had found a path of life through them. Those who stood upon it and looked down saw only more fragments of space, and nothing else besides.

"Do not look around. Plant every step firmly!

" The voice of True God Pang Yu came from ahead. "Fall, and there will be no place to bury you, no finding of your corpse at all!

" They walked a long while, until at last they saw the end.

Shen Mu set foot on solid ground, glanced about him, and smiled. This was Taiming Heaven itself, the very place through which he and the Emperor Shakra Heavenly King Buddha had returned to the Wilderness Ruins while fleeing the pursuit of the Scarlet Emperor of the Southern Heaven, Qi Xiayu.

And more than that, when the Wilderness Ruins fell from the Celestial Court and smashed through Taiming Heaven, that broken space had been left not far away!

They stood upon the soil of Taiming Heaven and looked about. As far as the eye could reach there was only black, sunken earth and raging winds, and dry bones in thronging crowds driven by the wind, gathering into great balls of white bone that rolled along with it. Clack, clack, clack, clack, the sight of those bone balls rolling through the wind had become a spectacle peculiar to Taiming Heaven.

The wind stopped, the bone balls burst apart and clattered down into heaps across the ground, and then countless skeletons clambered up and searched for their own bones, some of them seizing a thigh bone and squabbling over it.

All at once the skeletons noticed them and turned their heads to look. The hearts of the company tightened, and they were about to take guard when Shen Mu said hurriedly, "There is no need for alarm. They have simply never seen humans and are a little curious about us.

They are quite endearing, really.

They pose no threat. " A few bold skeletons came forward and touched the garments of these fugitive divine power practitioners; one with more daring still pinched a girl's cheek. Shen Mu took several sets of clothes from his Taotie Pouch and gave them to a few of the skeletons.

Those skeletons put them on and capered about in wild delight, running to and fro, while the other skeletons, green with envy, chased after them.

"There is not a speck of nourishment in this soil," said Granny Zhu. She tried to plant medicinal herbs in the earth, but saw them wither swiftly, and could only shake her head. The Venerable God Sangye sniffed the air and said, "There is no spirit breath or spirit power in the air either.

This place is unfit for any living being to dwell in. Perhaps only these skeletons can survive here.

" "Taihuang Heaven is falling! " someone suddenly cried in alarm. Shen Mu and the others were shaken to the core and hurriedly turned to look back the way they had come.

Across layer upon layer of space fragments, which shifted without the slightest order, they could at times see firelight coming from some unknowable distance on the far side, and dimly make out Taihuang Heaven. For Taiming Heaven was a world already sunk in dead silence, dark and unclear, so that from Taihuang Heaven nothing on this side could be seen.

But Taihuang Heaven was a sea of magma, dazzling bright, and so from Taiming Heaven, Taihuang Heaven could be seen. Taihuang Heaven was tilting, and the angle of its tilt was steadily growing.

This Taihuang Heaven looked as though it were about to plunge into the Broken Cliff!

"What lies below the Broken Cliff? " asked True God Pang Yu. "Jingping," Shen Mu said softly. "No.

The Wilderness Ruins. " The company was stunned. If Taihuang Heaven crashed down upon the Wilderness Ruins, it would surely bring on another catastrophe!

Li Zheng sighed.

"The people of the Nether Capital do things too ruthlessly.

They leave no room at all!

Let us hurry.

We must enter the Wilderness Ruins before Taihuang Heaven falls into it, or we will die with no place to be buried!

" "Follow me!

" Shen Mu shouted at the top of his voice and led the company toward the broken space. The others followed one after another, and along the way many odd and lively skeletons ran up, stretching out their hands to beg for clothes. Those who had spare garments gave them to the skeletons, and the skeletons that received them ran wild with joy.

There was even one tall skeleton, who in life must have been a man, wearing a woman's garments and parading about gaily, a most eye-catching sight.

After all this commotion, they came before the broken space and looked down. The abyss too was full of fragments of space, exceedingly perilous, yet compared with the road by which Taihuang Heaven had entered Taiming Heaven, it was far more stable.

The fragments of space here were not dense, and through them the scenery of the Wilderness Ruins could dimly be seen. Last time, Shen Mu had come here and used the God-Slaying Mystic Blade to cleave apart those fragments of space, entering the Wilderness Ruins without mishap.

But now, looking down, he was surprised to see that the broken space already possessed a stable passage. Someone had cut the fragments of space apart with an axe, leaving a channel a li or more in width.

Around this channel there was not the slightest fragment of space! "This must be the work of the Woodcutter Sage! " Shen Mu was relieved.

The Woodcutter Sage had plainly arrived here a step ahead, built the bridge along the way, and cleared the passage; no doubt he had already reached the Wilderness Ruins.

Yet what puzzled Shen Mu was this: why had the Woodcutter Sage not come looking for them, but instead gone on ahead? "With the Woodcutter Sage's strength, he should be able to pass through the fragments of space alone. Why, then, did he take such pains to calculate the path of life? Why build the bridge, why clear the passage?

" Shen Mu was somewhat bewildered.

The company rose into the air and leapt down one after another into the broken space.

And once through that broken space, below them stood the most towering ancient structure in all the Wilderness Ruins. The Southern Heavenly Gate! The Southern Heavenly Gate of the Kaihuang Celestial Court! On that day, above the Southern Heavenly Gate, tens of thousands of figures descended from the sky, landing one after another.

Shen Mu raised his head and looked at the sky. The entrance to Taiming Heaven in the heavens was almost impossible to discern.

Yet faintly, above the Southern Heavenly Gate, one patch of space could be seen glowing orange-red.

That was Taihuang Heaven! "Everyone, leave as quickly as you can.

Do not linger here.

Get to the nearest city!

" Shen Mu stood on high ground and shouted, "Follow me!

" The company strove to keep up with him, and that streak of orange-red in the sky grew steadily clearer.

It was Taihuang Heaven, tilting, rearing upright, falling along the Broken Cliff into the Wilderness Ruins! Although Shen Mu could not see the fall of Taihuang Heaven deep in the reaches of space, he could well imagine that it must be a scene of incomparable terror and magnificence!

What was falling was not Taihuang Heaven alone, but also that Luofu Heaven lodged in the place of Licheng in Taihuang Heaven!

Rolling magma, two heavens plunging down, would surely tear apart the vault of heaven above the Wilderness Ruins and smash into it.

They hurried at flying speed to the nearest city of the Wilderness Ruins. Scarcely had they entered when Shen Mu came face to face with a man with three faces, and his hair stood on end.

"Fu Riluo! " Behind him, True God Pang Yu suddenly roared, killing intent soaring straight to the heavens!

Clang!