Chapter 734 — A Battle Body Unrivaled Since Antiquity

The farmwife walked straight on to the next shrine of the Jade Capital, and the deity guarding this one was likewise a farmer from that same village.

"Ma'am," the god stationed there said with a slight nod as he saw her come, then turned his eyes back to Shen Mu and Hu Bugui, battling furiously within the hall.

The two stood side by side; they were husband and wife.

In the year the Kaihuang Heaven Court fell, the Martial Combat Heavenly Master, who held war in his charge, had led the mighty of the Dou Niu Heavenly Palace out to meet the foe, and that battle was thick with shifts and turns, upheavals and disasters that to this day they could not fathom. The Kaihuang Divine Dynasty had collapsed so swiftly that they, its gods of war, were left dazed and utterly powerless.

After that battle the war-gods of the Dou Niu Heavenly Palace had fallen in terrible numbers, barely a hundred or so left; the Martial Combat Heavenly Master, his heart turned to cold ash, led them to seek out the orphans of the war-gods who had died, hid the Dou Niu Heavenly Palace deep in the Wasteland Ruins, and they, the war-gods, became farmers tilling the fields, one and all.

Some of them married and made families, but few would bear sons or daughters, for the Spirit Bridge realm of their children no longer existed and the young could not escape death, and they had no wish to watch their own children die. The glory of the past had become a yellowed frame in the album of their lives; now they were only a band of farmers plowing soil and sowing grain. Only when they entered the Dou Niu Heavenly Palace once more and saw that the descendants of their comrades-in-arms still kept their high and ardent fighting spirit would they be reminded of those towering years of old.

Shen Mu and Hu Bugui had fought their way here, their exchanges growing ever more ferocious, wringing every last ounce of meaning from the name of martial combat. Their flesh and sinews, their primordial spirits, their vital essence, all were knit into one, each of them master of his own distinct method of forging the body and method of unleashing power.

Martial-dao divine abilities were also divine abilities of the body, belonging to the school of combat technique; bodily divine abilities burst forth the strength of the flesh and did not cultivate spells, and yet the power a body unleashed surpassed the power of spell-based divine abilities. Martial-dao divine abilities, however, demanded that one enter the stage of comprehending the Dao through martial arts, and in the world today those who could take that step were truly few. Under the pressure Shen Mu brought to bear, Hu Bugui drew nearer and nearer to that stage.

His combat techniques grew mightier and mightier, until in turn he laid heavy pressure on Shen Mu, forcing Shen Mu to keep refining his own techniques even in the midst of their exchanges.

"To bring forth such a formidable three heads and six arms, he must have received a true transmission.

" The woman said, "It is far stronger than the three heads and six arms of many a god or demon of the Heaven Court. But without having fathomed the way of comprehending the Dao through martial arts, in the end he cannot hope to overcome Hu Bugui.

" The farmer beside her said, "Hu Bugui is indeed strong.

He can hold off the attacks of three heads and six arms, and the force of his counterattack only grows; his strength and his insight have already reached the stage of comprehending the Dao through martial arts.

He improves so quickly. " The woman felt the same.

Hu Bugui advanced too fast.

When he returned to the Dou Niu Realm he had already awakened a spirit fetus, and no one had held out hope for him; the people of the Dou Niu Realm all thought him ruined, incapable of forging a martial soul. And yet Hu Bugui had forged one all the same.

Not only had he forged a martial soul; ten years later he was the first of all his peers to forge a martial-dao primordial spirit. And now he would surpass them all, comprehending the Dao through martial arts.

Such talent, such gifts, and such diligence were truly unmatched in a generation. Shen Mu and Hu Bugui fought their way out of that hall, its rear gate smashed to powder.

Husband and wife were both rather speechless for a moment; then the woman laughed.

"My rear hall has been beaten into a fine mess as well.

Let us go on to the next great hall.

That is where Senior Brother Tian keeps watch.

Senior Brother Tian has a fiery temper, and I fear he will strike at Hu Bugui and cut short his comprehension of the Dao. " The husband and wife hurried on to the next great hall. Shen Mu and Hu Bugui fought their way there, yet the deity on guard did not strike directly; he only watched quietly as the two of them blasted their way straight through his shrine.

"It has been many years since the Dou Niu Realm produced a youth who comprehended the Dao through martial arts. " That deity surnamed Tian was visibly stirred.

He followed the husband and wife out of the palace, walking on in the wake of Shen Mu and Hu Bugui, and said in a low voice, "Comprehending the Dao through martial arts is too hard, harder by I know not how many times than any other way of entering the Dao.

And now, at last, we have waited for such a youth. " They could all see that Shen Mu's fighting Hu Bugui was in truth a kindness, meant to keep Hu Bugui in his state of comprehending the Dao, and so none of them interfered. By degrees Shen Mu and Hu Bugui came near to blasting through all thirty-six halls of the Jade Capital, and more and more deities trailed behind them, all watching this battle of theirs intently.

Suddenly Hu Bugui's aura surged violently.

Every eye lit up, and every face turned anxious. This was Hu Bugui's most critical moment.

Whether he could take this step hung upon this single stroke.

Just then, all of Hu Bugui's afterimages vanished, and in the instant before they vanished each afterimage had been executing a different bodily divine ability, every move utterly unlike the rest.

Then those phantoms merged and overlapped with Hu Bugui's body.

Every hair on the bodies of the gods watching this battle stood on end, each strand bristling upright; it was an involuntary response of the body, the instinctive reaction of one who practices the martial arts toward the martial Dao. In bodily divine abilities each of them had attainments that shook heaven and earth, yet though they cultivated profound arts, they had never been able to take the step of comprehending the Dao through martial arts.

Their aptitude and insight were limited, their potential dug clean through; though they sensed the martial Dao right before them, needing only a final kick at the door, they could never step through that gate.

Hu Bugui in that instant entered the portal of the martial Dao, and the resonance of qi stirred in them all despite themselves. Hu Bugui crouched slightly, and his qi burst forth.

Across from him Shen Mu could not help but shiver with dread; in a single instant that terrible qi made him feel death drawing near.

Without pausing to think he would have used the first form of his Tribulation Sword, Opening the Tribulation, to block it, but he forced himself to hold back. The power of the Opening the Tribulation sword was too great; it was a strike that must kill.

His purpose in coming was to pass the Martial Combat Heavenly Master's trial of the martial Dao and to bring the Woodcutter Sage back, openly and honorably.

"I am Master Woodcutter's disciple. The Martial Combat Heavenly Master has always looked down on Master Woodcutter.

So this face, this honor, I will win back for him.

" Scarcely had the thought crossed his mind when the force of Hu Bugui's blow erupted.

The burst speed of a martial-dao divine ability was astonishingly swift, swift enough to rival Shen Mu's Opening the Tribulation sword.