Chapter 734 — A Battle Body Unrivaled Since Antiquity

The burst speed of such a divine ability far surpassed Qi Jiuyi's great divine ability, faster even than Zhe Huali's blade Dao; it left a man almost no time to react. Wind Shakes the Soughing Pines, Quaking the Vale.

He loosed this punch, plain and simple, but once it was loosed Shen Mu saw the afterimages wrought from the spirit of his fist intent, a whole chain of afterimages formed of different techniques and divine abilities stretching out from within Hu Bugui's body.

Shen Mu drove the Profound Body Three Elixirs Art, three heads and six arms, the six arms working every kind of bodily divine ability to hold the blow; in the very instant of contact he felt an unimaginable, overwhelming might come surging in, smashing and shattering the strength of his own flesh like rotten wood.

His arms shook and went numb, his bones shook, his primordial spirit shook, his vital essence could scarcely gather. The martial spirit borne on Hu Bugui's move was vast and mighty, driving straight in, one force shattering ten thousand arts, majestic beyond measure and impossible to withstand.

He had already achieved the return to plainness and truth, gathering the ten thousand methods of martial learning into a single punch; the punch looked utterly simple, yet the changes hidden within it were beyond imagining. Shen Mu retreated, a long whistle pouring unbroken from him, and exerted himself to the utmost, unfolding every bodily divine ability he had ever learned.

Lord Huo's fist, heavy as Mount Sumeru; the Butcher's blade, cleaving open the false heaven; the Lame Elder's leg, swift as lightning; and the many divine abilities of the human emperors through the ages, the First Ancestor's Seal of Heaven and Earth, the Buddhist divine arts of the Deva King Buddha Sakra, all of them he brought forth.

He broke through Hu Bugui's first afterimage, but the second came hard on its heels, and Shen Mu kept retreating, the flagstones bursting beneath his feet.

He was like a novice who had only just learned the martial arts, rousing every scrap of his strength, rousing his martial soul, gathering all his power into his flesh to stand against Hu Bugui.

Bodily divine abilities were by nature quicker to unleash than spell-based ones, and with three heads and six arms he unleashed them three times faster than an ordinary man. Moreover, as Shen Mu shifted his feet, his body turning a third of the way round in half a step, the divine ability of another pair of arms burst forth at just the right moment to meet this great martial-dao divine ability of Hu Bugui's. He was like a top spinning madly as it retreated, hurled back more than ten li in an instant, smashing through the rear gates of hall after hall, blasting straight through them one by one.

In that single instant his six arms worked I know not how many kinds of bodily divine abilities, and his latent potential was driven to its absolute limit in a flash; before, his qi and blood had been a rainbow, and now they blazed like a sheet of fire flooding the sky. And Hu Bugui still stood there in the very posture of having loosed his punch, while before him afterimage after afterimage executed all manner of different bodily divine abilities, fist or foot, no two moves alike. Afterimage upon afterimage spread furiously forward at a terrific speed.

So unimaginably swift were attack and defense in that instant that only when Shen Mu had already retreated out of the Jade Capital did the thunder of their bodily divine abilities bursting forth reach the ears of the gods within.

All this sounds slow in the telling, but in truth it was the work of a single instant. From the eruption of Hu Bugui's punch to Shen Mu's retreat out of the Jade Capital, a road more than ten li long was covered in the blink of an eye, and in that blink Shen Mu unleashed countless bodily divine abilities.

Only after Hu Bugui's great martial-dao divine ability had forced him out of the Jade Capital did the power stored in the chain of footprints he had left on the ground erupt; countless shards of stone along the line of his footprints burst open one after another, gorgeous as fireworks.

Bang, bang, bang, blossom after blossom of stone shards bloomed, exploding in a trail out of the city, exploding all the way to Shen Mu's feet. And at this moment all of Hu Bugui's afterimages overlapped into one, appearing before Shen Mu, and the full might of his great martial-dao divine ability erupted.

This was the true essence of the move, Wind Shakes the Soughing Pines, Quaking the Vale: even if you could take the whole string of attacks and changes that came before it, you could hardly withstand the power of all those afterimages fused into one. Such was the greatness of a great divine ability that had entered the Dao realm, breaking all that stood before it.

So arduous was comprehending the Dao through martial arts that even the gods under the Martial Combat Heavenly Master's command found it hard to attain; yet once one entered the Dao realm, one's cultivation and strength underwent an upheaval that turned heaven and earth. Shen Mu's heart held nothing else; in his eyes there remained only that one punch of Hu Bugui's, and beyond it nothing at all.

His qi and blood raged once more.

In this moment it was not only his martial soul that possessed him; his primordial spirit, too, entered a mysterious state that revered the martial. It was his martial-dao primordial spirit.

There were three steps to entering the martial Dao: the first, to awaken the martial soul; the second, to awaken the martial-dao primordial spirit; and the third, to advance into the martial Dao and comprehend one's own great martial-dao divine ability. He had spent ten days awakening his martial soul, yet under the oppression of Hu Bugui's great martial-dao divine ability his potential erupted, and in a single instant he awakened his martial-dao primordial spirit.

The several dozen deities of the Jade Capital were just about to act, to block this blow of Hu Bugui's for him, when suddenly from before the Lingxiao Hall in the Jade Capital came a deep and weighty voice: "Do not move rashly.

" The gods hastily checked themselves and turned to look, and there stood a deity with an ox's head and a man's body, light and flame whirling about him, planted before the Lingxiao Hall like a god-king, awe-inspiring to behold: none other than the inconspicuous old ox that served beneath the old farmer.

This old ox was nothing like the creature that plowed the fields; as his eyes opened and shut, divine light shot in all directions. He said in a low voice, "Do not hinder his comprehending the Dao through martial arts.

This is his most critical moment.

" "Comprehending the Dao through martial arts? " Doubt rose in the hearts of the crowd.

A woman murmured, "But Hu Bugui has already attained comprehension of the Dao through martial arts. By now he ought to be waking from it. .

. unless?

" The gods' faces filled with disbelief, and they looked toward the place where Shen Mu and Hu Bugui fought. There, Shen Mu seemed in a single instant to have grown a thousand arms, unfolding all the martial learning he had acquired in a manner wholly different from Hu Bugui's.

Clearly, the one the old ox meant when he spoke of comprehending the Dao through martial arts was not Hu Bugui. "So this is the legendary Overlord Body the Woodcutter Great Heavenly Master spoke of?

" the old ox said softly.