Chapter 798 — Unceasing Dissection and Study

For Shen Mu, that night's experience lay only a few years behind him; for that girl, forty thousand years of time had already passed.

What baffled Shen Mu was that, forty thousand years gone, Bai Qu'er's features were still as they had been at their first meeting, scarcely changed at all.

She had not grown up. She was still the lively, lovely girl he had seen that night in Shanghuang's Bailong City, a pair of tiny dragon horns hidden in the fine hair at her brow.

What had changed was her bearing.

He did not know what she had lived through; the timidity and frailty of before had been swept clean away, and she was filled with keenness, with enterprise, with fearlessness.

What Shen Mu did not know was that, before the dawn appeared, he had been the force that sustained her and those Shanghuang remnants and kept them alive; and that once the light of the rising sun appeared, he was the force that encouraged her to live, and to keep those frail remnants living.

Two people separated by forty thousand years, meeting as though for the first time, neither of them much changed in looks; Shen Mu had grown up, Bai Qu'er's bearing had altered, and that was all.

Shen Mu smiled, and the girl amid the gods across from him smiled as well.

They let their gazes slip apart, like a boy and a girl who had never set eyes on each other, who would blush with shyness if they looked one moment longer.

Shen Mu's spirits soared, and his mood suddenly and for no reason at all grew far brighter. He laughed: "A disciple of the Earth Mother, and I must still prove to you whether I am true or false. A fine joke, and a pitiful one. I have the Earth Mother's blessing."

The halo behind his head turned slowly, holding within it the power of the Earth Mother Venerable God.

"And the Earth Origin Dao Fruit grown upon the Origin Wood."

Shen Mu swept his gaze slowly around the hall and said, unhurried, "Who the attendant maiden at my side is, I imagine many of the seniors here have seen for themselves. And these treasures of mine were every one of them refined by the Earth Mother's own hand. I have these. What do you have?"

The girl's expression did not change. She laughed softly: "Feng Qiuyun? Feng Qiuyun betrayed the Earth Mother long ago. Of course, had Feng Qiuyun and the Feng clan not betrayed her, the Earth Mother would not have been defeated so miserably. Senior Sister Feng, am I right?"

Feng Qiuyun flared into fury: "Slander! You little wench, I will tear you to shreds!"

Shen Mu raised a hand and said in a low voice, "Sister Qiuyun, calm yourself. There are many demigods here; make a reckless move and you will easily become the target of every eye, and she will make use of you."

Feng Qiuyun's heart went cold. She turned quickly to look, and indeed many of the demigods wore looks of doubt.

The girl laughed: "Feng Qiuyun betrayed the Earth Mother, yet there were still many loyal ministers and righteous men faithful to the Earth Mother Venerable God, and that is how the Earth Mother kept her life. As for traitors and villains, there were no few of those either. How will you prove that the treasures in your hands are the Earth Mother's?"

Shen Mu looked at the girl before the Emperor's Throne and said, half smiling, "Sword, come!"

He lifted his palm. Feng Qiuyun started, then understood in a flash, and laid the hilt of the Venerable God's Kunyuan Sword into his hand, murmuring, "Be careful. It is very heavy."

Shen Mu smiled faintly. Primeval force poured into the Venerable God's Kunyuan Sword, and at once the divine sword's might was roused; the geomagnetic primeval power ran wild, turning into godlight visible to the naked eye!

Stifled grunt followed stifled grunt, and everyone within the whole Lingxiao Treasure Hall felt an immense pressure!

The might issuing from that wooden sword was not the mere power of a divine art, but a divine power!

The divine power that belonged to the Earth Mother Venerable God alone, pressing down all the heavens, pressing down all the worlds!

That was the geomagnetic primeval power, a force as solid and weighty as the great earth of the Yuan World!

Shen Mu likewise felt the wooden sword's weight turn terrifying, so that he nearly could not lift it; he at once drew back part of his primeval force, and only then felt somewhat easier.

Whoosh.

He raised the wooden sword level and moved it slowly; the sword travelled very slowly, yet its strength was beyond measure, and he thrust it forward.

Many of the women beside the girl raised their brows and made to strike; the girl lifted her hand with a smile and held up a single forefinger, and the women at her side dared not stir.

Shen Mu's thrust halted just as it reached the point between her brows; yet that immeasurably solid sound had not ceased, and the turmoil brought on by the geomagnetic primeval power left the whole hall reeling as in a storm.

Rumbling booms came unceasingly from behind the hall, and the many demigods and demon gods standing before the hall doors flew out one after another.

The crowd rose into the air and looked behind the hall, and saw that with Shen Mu's thrust, behind the Lingxiao Treasure Hall mountain after mountain reared up from the ground, rumbling without cease, terrifying beyond measure, as though the might of that one thrust had burst open behind the Lingxiao Hall!

In the vast Jade Capital City, countless halls burst apart; peak after towering, graceful peak burst up from underground at a horrifying speed, smashing this ancient relic of the Heavenly Court to splinters!

That one thrust destroyed a tenth of the Jade Capital City!

"It is the Venerable God's Kunyuan Sword!"

An ancient demigod blurted out, "It is this very sword that subdued all the heavens! Ancestral Dragon King, this is the sword, is it not?"

The Ancestral Dragon King, startled and irresolute, said in a somewhat hoarse voice, "It is this sword. The Earth Mother refined it from the Origin Wood, and it holds the Earth Mother's divine power. In the years when the Earth Mother walked the world, she had no need to descend in person; she need only send someone bearing this sword. Once the Kunyuan Sword came forth, all the heavens bowed in submission."

"And those who would not submit..."

A demon god from the heavens above the Yuan World said coldly, "Were all slain by this wooden sword!"

The scholar came out leading the donkey, looked at the mountain range that had appeared so suddenly and destroyed a tenth of the Jade Capital City, and knitted her brows slightly.

Yet at that moment Shen Mu, gripping the Venerable God's Kunyuan Sword, felt uneasy at heart; he had not noticed that at this one thrust even the god-temples of the Jade Capital City could not hold.

"Why is this sword's power so small? I did not use my full strength just now. Let me thrust once more and see!"

He lifted the wooden sword again and thrust once more.

In this thrust he drew on more primeval force; the wooden sword grew even more solid and heavy, so that he could scarcely raise it to thrust.

The space within the hall rumbled and shook, a fearsome din, and countless strands of geomagnetic godlight poured out of the sword; yet for all the tremendous clamour, the Venerable God's Kunyuan Sword still displayed little might or power, and the wooden sword did no great damage to the Lingxiao Hall.

"Can this sword of mine be a fake?"

Cold sweat broke out on Shen Mu's brow; whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, he thrust several times in succession.

Outside the hall, even the scholar and that donkey were dumbstruck, staring blankly at the Jade Capital City.

Boom, boom, wave upon wave of dreadful force rolled out, and behind the Jade Capital City mountain range after mountain range reared up, tossing countless palaces and halls high into the air, where they burst apart.

Each range stretched a thousand li; peak after peak looked like strange apparitions born of exploding geomagnetic divine power!