Chapter 696 — The Holy Mother of the Netherworld

Wu Qu was seized with dread. Before Shen Mu he had loomed immeasurably vast, yet beside this chubby baby's face he looked pitifully small.

The baby's palm reached out and closed on him. For all his vast divine powers, he could not struggle free; the baby carried him toward its mouth.

"My brother and I share one name."

Before death took him, he heard Shen Mu's voice: "Because we share one soul, and one body."

The baby swallowed him down in a single gulp and chewed hard. Then, all at once roused to frenzy, it lunged for Shen Mu: "Bad little brother — die!"

At that very instant, Shen Mu's body drew out the willow leaf and laid it gently against the space between his brows.

Before the baby could seize Shen Mu, a formless force swept in, caught it up, and dragged it down into the abyss.

"Bad little brother—"

The baby fell for a long while, then landed with a thud on its bottom on the ground. It looked about and saw that it had fallen once more into the seal of the Shenzi Continent, where the white-bearded old man and the Crimson Emperor were hiding from it in the Shenzi Mountains.

"Bad little brother, when I catch you I'll eat you!"

The baby went berserk with rage, scrambling on hands and knees into the Shenzi range, meaning to vent its fury by catching Lord Heaven's avatar and the Crimson Emperor's consciousness first: "First I beat the old man, then the three-headed one!"

The two fled in haste. Lord Heaven's avatar said, "No need to fear him. This is Lord Earth's seal; it shifts without cease, and he cannot catch us!"

The Crimson Emperor said, "That is what you said last time — and then you were caught."

"This time it will not happen!"

Shen Mu returned to his own body and let out a breath. Ahead, Wu Qu's corpse sank away, and the dark Gloom Capital vanished of itself.

Shen Mu raised his head and smiled. "Lady Tianyin, at last we meet. But you need not grieve; my divine abilities may yet gather up the soul that was devoured from you..."

He had barely spoken when Lady Tianyin, standing in the sea, lifted her foot and stamped down toward him.

Shen Mu's blood ran cold. With no time to work any divine ability, he turned and sprinted along the bridge deck. He soon reached the Kaihuang god's side, and without a word seized him and ran.

Behind him came the thunderous crash of a palace caving in underfoot. Lady Tianyin's foot had come down on emptiness; she turned and gave chase.

Her body pierced beyond the heavens. One stride carried her a thousand li; though each foot rose and fell slowly, the speed of her advance was beyond any other being's reach.

"It is those corpse-ghosts who are controlling this lady's shell!"

Shen Mu swiftly guessed why Lady Tianyin's husk had turned on them. Without pausing to think it through, he took out the Book of Life and Death and shone it upon that towering goddess, thinking, "Lady Tianyin has already been eaten by these corpse-ghosts. This Lady Tianyin is in truth a corpse-ghost wearing the lady's husk! Which is to say, Lady Tianyin is now a corpse-ghost herself."

The Book of Life and Death blazed, but the goddess only paused slightly. Black smoke poured from her eyes, ears, mouth, and nose; then she lifted her foot again and pursued Shen Mu and the Kaihuang god.

"She is too vast; even the Book of Life and Death cannot shine upon her whole body!"

Shen Mu drove the Book of Life and Death with his vital essence, letting it float behind his head, and sprinted at a mad gallop, pushing the Sky-Skimming Divine Legs the Lame Elder had taught him to their utmost. His speed climbed and climbed again.

"Senior, run!" Shen Mu, hauling the Kaihuang god along, found it heavy going and could not bring out his full speed, and cried out in alarm.

The Kaihuang god abruptly broke into a run, far faster than Shen Mu, and vanished in a trail of dust, leaving him far behind.

Shen Mu was stunned, then furious. "What a faithless wretch! I shed a few tears over you, at least! If you can run that fast, you might have carried me along."

Suddenly Lady Tianyin reached out a hand to seize him. As the palm thrust down from beyond the heavens into the atmosphere of the Tianyin Realm, it scraped violently against the air, and roaring flame blazed up around it — yet not a hair of her was scorched.

Her palm came down on Shen Mu like a vast continent falling out of the sky.

Behind Shen Mu's head the Book of Life and Death blazed with light, and before her palm even arrived, her fingers one after another went limp, as though the air had been let out of them.

Even so, when that palm came down it would be enough to cover Shen Mu beneath its center!

Just as Shen Mu was about to be covered by that continent of a palm, countless runes whirled up around him; his teleportation divine ability erupted in an instant, the runes spinning madly about him like numberless sheets of yellow spirit paper. When the runes burned to ash and were gone, Shen Mu was gone with them.

The next moment Shen Mu appeared a thousand li away; at once countless runes surfaced around him again, and his body vanished once more. When he reappeared he had fled another thousand li.

His figure flickered again and again. He would spend every last shred of his cultivation if he must, so long as he burst out of the Tianyin Realm before Lady Tianyin caught him.

Behind him, the Wave-Resting Long Bridge kept collapsing under Lady Tianyin's tread; the long bridge could not bear the footfalls of this heaven-born divinity at all.

By now Shen Mu was not far from the shore. Just then, numberless monsters in the sea leapt up like ghosts and demons; as Shen Mu was about to teleport again they surged forward all at once, a swarm of them clinging to his body.

"Get off me, all of you!"

Shen Mu drove the Book of Life and Death. With a hum, countless monsters turned into empty husks and dropped away — and above his head, Lady Tianyin's palm slammed down!

BOOM!

The sea of the Tianyin Realm convulsed; the land along the shore shook without cease. Frightful fissures spread in every direction, thunderous crashes rolling in from all sides, magma spouting from the cracks — though even the magma here was a gray, murky color.

Lady Tianyin lifted her hand. Beneath her palm the long bridge was broken, the sea driven aside, revealing a seabed utterly parched; the water that had been there was steamed away to nothing.

In the instant her palm rose, countless runes whirled beneath it, and at their center a huge sword pellet, like a ball of metal — beaten now half flat!

Crash—

The runes burned; the metal ball vanished, and the next moment it appeared in the town by the sea.

Lady Tianyin, suspicious, did not see Shen Mu teleport away; she searched all around and still could not find him.

In the town, the Kaihuang god stealthily poked out his head. The sword pellet was clanging and clattering to and fro through the seaside town, Shen Mu hidden inside it, rolling at furious speed as the metal ball dropped and bounced.

Inside the pellet, Shen Mu set the Sorrowless Sword upright and used it as an axle to prop the pellet open. Lady Tianyin had nearly flattened him along with the pellet; it was by bracing the pellet with the Sorrowless Sword that he had kept from being smashed to death.

The pellet, however, had been beaten out of shape.

When the pellet bounced up again, the metal ball split with a swish into eight thousand swords. Shen Mu leaped out, stretched his limbs, and raised one hand. The eight thousand swords clashed with a ringing sound and became a small sword pellet that dropped into his palm.

Suddenly a crack sounded in his palm: the little sword pellet burst apart, becoming a cloud of fine dust that drifted down and pattered onto the ground.

Shen Mu's face darkened. He looked at his palm: nothing there but the Sorrowless Sword and a heap of metal dust.

He had weathered Lady Tianyin's palm and had not been smashed to death, but the sword pellet that had borne that blow had been pounded to powder!