Chapter 715 — Heaven Sets the Fire

This time it is our honored master himself who has taken an interest in the affairs of Jingping. Our master is the Black Emperor of the Nether Capital; that he should personally concern himself shows how much weight he places on Jingping, and it also seals Jingping's fate. " Shen Mu's heart sank by degrees. The Dark Son of Heaven had taken a personal interest?

No wonder the Woodcutter Sage and the First Ancestor Human Sovereign had fallen into the trap! The Dark Son of Heaven's cultivation and strength were unfathomable. If he personally presided over the descent of tribulation upon Jingping, then Jingping truly had no way to live.

"My master wishes to see you. He has no interest in Jingping; his interest is in you alone. He once sent our junior brother Qi Jiuyi to deal with you, but junior brother Qi was useless. So he ordered us to come.

" Lou Yunqu said, "That mirror with which junior brother Qi Jiuyi meant to seal you, you still have it, do you not?

" Shen Mu kept secretly rousing his Undying Consciousness, trying to seize his brother's power, but without success.

Just then he suddenly felt wave after wave of power surging toward him from the center of his brow. His heart leaped, but he showed nothing on his face.

"The mirror the three of you speak of, the one I took from Qi Jiuyi? " Shen Mu rummaged in the Taotie Pouch. "Wait a moment.

Let me look for it.

" Lou Yunqu smiled. "That mirror was made to seal you. Our master refined it specially for you.

All you need do is take it out and look into it, and you will freeze yourself in place, saving us a great deal of trouble.

" Shen Mu took a mirror from the Taotie Pouch, looked into it, and shook his head.

"Not this one. " With that he tossed it aside and rummaged again. "Nor this one.

" He took out another mirror, looked into it, shook his head, and threw it aside. Lou Yunqu and the others waited patiently. In a short while Shen Mu had taken more than a dozen mirrors from the Taotie Pouch, looking into each one, and not once had he been frozen in place.

The patience of Lou Yunqu and the others wore thin.

Shen Mu threw out more and more mirrors, and still the mirror refined by the Black Emperor of the Nether Capital did not appear. "What does a grown man like you carry so many mirrors for? " Fu Yanqi, hot-tempered, shouted.

"I am handsome; what can I do? I must carry a few extra mirrors.

" Shen Mu looked up, abashed. Fu Yanqi snorted in anger.

"The human body is nothing but a stinking skin bag.

Die this life, live the next. Is a stinking skin bag worth such cherishing? Look at my hand. The Imperial Preceptor of Jingping hacked it down to a single finger, and I am not half so precious about it as you!

" He raised his right hand.

Only the thumb remained. Shen Mu did not answer.

He took out a mirror, looked into its face, and suddenly his body went rigid, motionless. Lou Yunqu and the other two breathed a sigh of relief. Kui Qingpei said, "So it is this one.

The calamity gods of the various realms who came to bring down tribulation are nearly revived. This is no good place; let us leave quickly and return to the Dark Capital, lest we be dragged down with it. " There was a stone statue near the Yongjiang Academy as well.

At this moment the stone was slowly receding from it, flesh and blood color gradually returning, and wave after wave of dreadful divine might poured off it, sending ripples through the space around it.

Lou Yunqu and the other two sensed the waves coming from the statue, and their hearts went cold.

These statues had a special name in the Heavenly Court: calamity gods. They were the deities the Heavenly Court used to send disaster upon those lower realms that would not submit. When a calamity god descends, the world falls into chaos. In the past, an ordinary lower realm might receive one or two calamity gods at most, and that was enough to destroy a world.

Jingping was different: Jingping had more than thirty calamity gods descending at once!

Nor was that all. Along with the calamity gods came more than a dozen celestial divine weapons. In the Heavenly Court such celestial divine weapons were called tribulation-descending divine weapons, weapons made expressly to punish the people of the world, forged by the ancient gods born of heaven and earth.

One or two tribulation-descending divine weapons were enough to inflict all-around, devastating blows upon a world!

And Jingping had more than a dozen of them.

Calamity gods plus tribulation-descending divine weapons: that was the array of world-destruction! Calamity gods recognize no kin, and neither do tribulation-descending divine weapons.

So Lou Yunqu and the others must leave the moment they had kindled this calamity, lest they be caught in it. Kui Qingpei walked over and reached for the bright mirror in Shen Mu's hand, smiling. "Our master spent great pains refining this Nether Capital Jade Mirror; it took him four or five years to complete. This treasure was made for the Divine Son of the Dark Capital, and yet junior brother Qi Jiuyi let it fall into this boy's hands. The boy looks clever, but has he not fallen into our trap? Dealing with him is truly as easy as reaching out and taking it.

.

. " His palm had just closed on the Nether Capital Jade Mirror when Shen Mu's palm closed on his hand.

"Is that so?

" Shen Mu's voice came at his ear, grim and cold, enough to make a man's blood run cold.

Kui Qingpei looked up and saw Shen Mu's three eyes blazing with butterfly-wing-shaped light.

Kui Qingpei's blood ran cold. "Divine Son of the Dark Capital, you were not sealed.

.

.

" "It is my brother who was sealed. " Shen Mu's other hand clamped on Kui Qingpei's head and twisted hard.

Kui Qingpei saw his own buttocks and his own heels. Hmmm.

Shen Mu's three eyes blazed.

Three beams of light stabbed in through the back of Kui Qingpei's skull and out through the front. "Did Qi Jiuyi never tell you? He once tried to freeze me with this mirror, and he could not freeze me either.

Instead he was defeated by my hand! " Shen Mu opened his mouth and drew in a long, long breath.

Kui Qingpei's soul had just left his body and was trying to flee into the Nether Capital when it was suddenly swept, helpless, toward Shen Mu's mouth! "You are too stupid.

Best not to reincarnate. Let me taste your soul!

" Lou Yunqu and Fu Yanqi's faces changed drastically; they rushed to the rescue. There was a thunderous boom, and Fu Yanqi was sent flying backward, while Lou Yunqu, whose cultivation was the highest of the three, a god of the God-Slaying Terrace, was a cut above the rest and knocked Shen Mu head over heels.

Kui Qingpei's body was dead; his soul, once free, tried to fly into the Nether Capital. Shen Mu landed, reached out, and pinned it in the air, unable to return to the Nether Capital.

"The taste of a Nether Capital disciple must be finer than those ghosts of the Dark Capital! " Shen Mu opened his mouth wide in excitement.

Lou Yunqu and Fu Yanqi charged in again, striving to save Kui Qingpei before Shen Mu could eat him. Meanwhile, on the Shen-character continent at the center of Shen Mu's brow, the Crimson Emperor blinked and said, "Have we given him too much of the Dark Capital's power? " Lord Heaven, his nose swollen and his face bruised, said, "Not too much.

Rest easy, I know my limits! When have I ever done a thing I was not sure of? " Beside them the big-headed infant sat stiffly, motionless, while wave after wave of Dark Capital demonic qi poured madly out of his body. A moment before, they had tried to subdue Shen Fengqing and make him lend his power to Shen Mu, but Shen Fengqing was fierce indeed, and beat the two of them into a sorry state.